If there was any doubt as to the left wing's real motives behind their Israel hatred.

Evidence please. Can you provide a single example of a pro-Israel advocate saying that any and all criticism of Israel is inherently anti-semitic?

You people are constantly whining that this is what you are unfairly being accused of; it shouldn't be hard to find evidence of a few mainstream pro-Israel advocates asserting that all criticism of the Israeli government is inherently anti-semitic

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Yes-all-criticism-of-Israel-is-anti-Semitic

Who knew google could be so handy?

Who

Are anti-Israel critics capable of being anti-semitic?

Are we about to engage in a sarcastic/rhetorical question fencing match?

I have no doubt you are right to be honest, we won't find any mainstreamers who do say anything of the sort. It tends to be the keyboard warriors who lash out like that, and it is pretty annoying.

If I hypothetically disagreed with Iran's (now abandoned) policy on nuclear research noone would claim I was islamophobic. Why should I be labelled anti-semitic for criticising Israeli policy?

I think that criticism of Israeli policy is obviously not anti-semitic; otherwise there would be millions of Israeli Jews who are considered anti-semitic.

What I find annoying is that it seems like many on the pro-Palestine side claim they are being accused of anti-semitism about ten times for every time they are actually accused of it. I've found in my experience that pro-Palestine advocates often bring it up out of the blue, it's like a pre-emptive attack to claim they are unfairly being accused of anti-semitism and it completely muddies the waters.

I think the issue, in my mind, is two-fold. The first is that I don't think pro-Palestine advocates are accused of being inherently anti-semitic nearly as much as they claim they are; my experience is that they are often the first ones to bring it up.

The second fold of the issue is that I don't think one can truly understand the vehemence, and hatred even, with which many people criticise the nation state of the Jewish people without understanding the anti-semitic element. There are plenty of countries, like China (Tibet), Turkey (Northern Cyprus), India (Kashmir) etc that are in the position of occupying a particular area coupled with a degree of human rights abuses.

But it seems that all these other countries are essentially ignored; I do think it's relevant to ask why the fixation on the world's only Jewish state. If Israel was a Muslim state, do you really think it would be criticised in the way it is?

They shouldn't use it as a shield no. The problem is I think that many of them feel obliged to say it because even if it is rarely an accusation made to them, the whole area of Israel is sensitive in this respect. Judaism and Israel are so interconnected that anti-semitism is almost implied. What I'm (badly) trying to say is that despite there being no solid evidence the emotional reaction I get when I criticise Israel is that I have to be careful to avoid coming across that way. Considering anti-semitism has such bad connotations to it and such a horrific history, can you really blame someone for pre-emptively denying it? Then again, straight up accusing someone of using anti-semitism as an insult towards the pro-palestine side is just as bad. Ironically, it shuts down debate just as much as actual accusations of anti-semitism do.

It's irritating, but it probably wouldn't be criticised the same way. However I do think it's understandable. Fair or not, Muslim countries have a pretty poor reputation where human rights are concerned anyway. They are almost expected to behave poorly. Israel however seems to be portrayed and treated by World leaders as a prime example of a civilised country, and offered seemingly endless support by the US. Israel gets treated with the jealousy aimed at any other teacher's pet

In all seriousness, I try to critic Israel the same way I do any country. It's a great country, impressive in many ways, especially with its treatment of gay rights, but I honestly think it is way too militaristic towards Palestine, all it does at the end of the day is land even more disillusioned Palestinians into the hands of organistations like Hamas

I completely agree with you in that. I tear my hair out when it comes up because then the whole debate moves away from what is actually relevant; Israel's actions (of which I am myself extremely critical).

I think what I find most disturbing is that it feels like a lot of the criticism goes beyond mere criticism and ends up at a point where it is fundamentally saying that Israel has no right to exist. For example, I pointed out the other day in a debate to a guy that about half of the Jews in Israel are from the Middle East, from countries like Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Morrocco, Yemen etc. I asked him what should happen to the Iraqi Jews in Israel (as he proposed Israelis should all be expelled), where can they go now? He said he didn't care, Israel is an illegitimate state and that's their problem.
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I desperately want the occupation of the Palestinian territories to end, and the settlements to be removed. I think the occupation is bad for both the Palestinians (obviously, all the checkpoints, the humiliations etc, is bad) but also for the Israelis (having to occupy another people, to find traitors within that occupied population to work for you.. I think it would bring out the darkness in any people and so Israelis tendency is that they are crueler and have a hard heart to such things more than if they weren't occupying).

But.... I find it really disturbing when it feels like the criticism goes way beyond that to say that, no matter what the various claims of each side (and Jews do have a reasonable claim, there were Jewish people who continuously lived in the Levant and never left, and the Arabs were probably only a majority from the 13th century onwards), and no matter what the practical considerations of uprooting seven million Israelis, these people say they do not care, that Israel is an evil apartheid state and must be ended. I don't think Israel is a perfect country by any means, but I do also think it has many good aspects (the fact you can have black Ethiopian Jews and Iraqi Jews, Poles and Australians, 17 year olds, serving together in a people's army.. it's probably the most multicultural society in the world). It is quite a tolerant society to LGBT people, and contributes a lot in terms of high tech research, medical research etc.

The occupation has to end... but I fear that many people on the pro-Palestine side go further and want Israel to be ended as well. And it's true to say that some do... possibly a small majority don't, but many do.

That is a genuine issue and a real consideration. The thing is... the Middle East is a very harsh area of the world. It turned out that not only could the Jews play the Middle East power game, but they were actually pretty good at it (the spies, the assassinations, the eye for an eye mentality). It's like you have ancient tribal enmity with modern weapons.

But in some ways Israel does try; in the recent Gaza War, they sent text messages and dropped leaflets to tell people that an airstrike was coming, they could have just bombed from the air but they sent in ground troops (and lost quite a few). They've also made mistakes and in some cases were too heavy in applying the artillery, but I think it is a mixed bag. There's both good and bad in their military conduct.

I'm genuinely not sure how you resolve that; that Israel is in many ways a Western country with liberal traditions. But that it is located in the Middle East, where the mindset and the approach to resolving problems is very different to what would be considered appropriate in Europe. I really don't know whether you hold Israel to a higher standard, or a higher standard but with some consideration of their geographical situation.

I agree that it is too militaristic towards the Palestinians. And I think that in some ways Jewish people, by dint of previously always having been a persecuted minority... they are not psychologically set up for a scenario where they have military superiority over another group. It's alien to them, and I think as a result they have not responded appropriately.

I really want the occupation to end, I think it can end and there can be a just settlement. What I fear is that there are extremists on both sides (the most religious settler nutcases, along with those on the other side who want Israel to be ended as a state) who will veto a just and final settlement of the conflict

So what is your view of the following words

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."

Markets itself as such? Presumably you are not denying that Israel itself (within the 1967 borders) is a fairly tolerant society, that encompasses many viewpoints and modes of living from Christian monasteries to ultra-Orthodox Jewish yeshivas to socialist Zionist kibbutzes to the Tel Aviv gay scene. It is indeed a very pluralstic society.

The second fold of the issue is that I don't think one can truly understand the vehemence, and hatred even, with which many people criticise the nation state of the Jewish people without understanding the anti-semitic element. There are plenty of countries, like China (Tibet), Turkey (Northern Cyprus), India (Kashmir) etc that are in the position of occupying a particular area coupled with a degree of human rights abuses.

But it seems that all these other countries are essentially ignored; I do think it's relevant to ask why the fixation on the world's only Jewish state. If Israel was a Muslim state, do you really think it would be criticised in the way it is?

I sometimes wonder if perhaps Israel would do better on this front by presenting itself as less a Jewish orientated country.

1. Nukes
2. Western geopolitical interests
3. Duration of conflict

Kashmir lacks 2. Tibet lacks 2. Cyprus lacks them all.

1. Nukes
2. Western geopolitical interests
3. Duration of conflict

1. Jews
2. Jews
3. Jews

Likely less than 10% of people in the UK "hate Israel with a passion". Internationally, closer to 30%. So, wrong on both counts. As for the proportion that distrust Jews/Israel, and/or disapprove of her policies/state-sponsored acts,* you may have a point, in this case

How about Scotland presenting itself as less a Scottish oriented country?

The difference is that "Scottish" is a very fluid and largely subjective identity that, for the most part, relates directly to citizenship, not a clear-cut hereditary ethnic group identity that one cannot acquire through purely civil channels.